Talk about video games, movies, music, news, and technology without wading through a thousand dumb kids and dozen exclamation points after each sentence. Try it out for a few days and remember what it's like to breathe Internet air without getting two lungs full of stupid.

13 Assassins

By Takashi Miike

Info: 13 Assassins (十三人の刺客 Jūsannin no Shikaku?) is a 2010 Japanese jidaigeki film directed by Takashi Miike, known for his ultra-violent work in the horror genre.

A samurai epic based on a true incident, the film was produced by Japanese producer Toshiaki Nakazawa, who won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Departures. It was executive-produced by Jeremy Thomas, a British producer with a reputation for breaking Asian titles into the international market, most notably Bernardo Bertolucci's nine-time Oscar winner The Last Emperor, Nagisa Ōshima's Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and Takeshi Kitano's Brother.

The film is a remake of Eiichi Kudos 1963 black-and-white Japanese film of the same name, Jūsan-nin no shikaku. The screenplay was written by Daisuke Tengan.

It stars Koji Yakusho, whose credits include Memoirs of a Geisha and Shall We Dance, along with Takayuki Yamada, Hiroki Matsukata, and Kazuki Namioka.

I'll start off by saying everything you've heard about 13 Assassins is true. It is one of Miike's most mature and accomplished films to date. It boasts exquisite production value and is beautifully shot. And yes, it culminates in an epic 40 minute battle that recalls Akira Kurosawa and the classic Jidaigeki of yore. So why did I merely enjoy the film? Why wasn't I blown away?

[...]

That doesn't mean it isn't the best film Miike's made in years- because it is. Front to back, it's across the board solid. It just doesn't have that little something extra to push it over the edge into greatness. I'm not talking about dart-spitting vaginas or zombie musical numbers, here. A lack of patented Miike "craziness" isn't the problem. It just doesn't stand out as anything other than a well made exercise in classical Japanese storytelling.